In celebration of Earth Week, a new bird-friendly exhibit garden was planted at Charlotte Nature Museum. The garden will seek to educate and inspire Museum-goers to understand the connection between birds, pollinators and NC native plants, with the intention of inspiring guests to create their own garden at home.

Audubon North Carolina, the Mecklenburg Audubon Society, Mecklenburg County, and Charlotte Nature Museum have partnered to build the bird-friendly exhibit garden. The garden will host a variety of bird-friendly native plants and educational signs for the community to learn about the benefits of growing native plants that support birds all year.

“Through the Bird-Friendly Communities initiative, we’re always exploring innovative ways to engage citizens in small, simple actions that benefit our birds and local communities,” said Kim Brand, Audubon’s Bird-Friendly Communities Coordinator. “The addition of a bird-friendly garden to the museum will be a great model for the Charlotte community to learn about gardening and understand how we can all do our part to help birds and pollinators in our own backyards.”

“Adding a bird-friendly exhibit to the Museum campus is a natural fit for our organization and our visitors,” said Marvin Bouknight, Director of Charlotte Nature Museum. “We’re excited to have a public space for more Museum visitors and local residents to experience bird-friendly gardening and be inspired to transform their own space to benefit birds and pollinators in a predominately urban environment.”

UNC Charlotte Botanical Garden staff designed the bird-friendly garden, which features many of Audubon North Carolina’s Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year.

Wells Fargo and Audubon volunteers gathered to build the exhibit garden during a special work-day event this past weekend at Charlotte Nature Museum.

Since 2013, Audubon North Carolina has been working with local communities in urban and suburban environments to increase connected habitats for birds across our state.

For more information on Audubon North Carolina’s Bird-Friendly Communities initiative, visit our website.

The bird-friendly rain garden project is supported in partnership with Wells Fargo and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). In 2012, Wells Fargo and NFWF launched the Environmental Solutions for Communities initiative, designed to support projects that link economic development and community well-being to the stewardship and health of the environment.

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About Audubon North Carolina

With a century of conservation history in North Carolina, Audubon strives to conserve and restore the habitats we share with all wildlife, focusing on the needs of birds. Audubon North Carolina achieves its mission through a blend of science-based research and conservation, education and outreach, and advocacy. Audubon North Carolina has offices in Corolla, Boone, Wilmington and Chapel Hill. Learn more at nc.audubon.org and @audubonnc.

About Charlotte Nature Museum

Charlotte Nature Museum offers visitors the chance to get close to wildlife and walk among free-flying butterflies in Butterfly Pavilion, observer live animals in Creature Cavern, buzz by Insect Alley, hang out in Our Big Backyard or explore the Paw Paw Natural Trail in the 100-year-old forest. While focusing on ages 3-7, ever-changing hands-on programming provides the opportunity for structure learning and informal play for kids of all ages. Visitors can learn together during workshops, Summer Camps and more. You can follow the Museum on Twitter at @CLTNatureMuseum or follow the reside groundhog, Queen Charlotte, at @CLTGroundhog.

Discovery Place, Inc. owns and operates Discovery Place, Charlotte Nature Museum, Discovery Place KIDS-Huntersville and Discovery Place KIDS-Rockingham, and is supported, in part, with funding from the Arts & Science Council.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.8 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through 8,700 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 36 countries to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 265,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 30 on Fortune’s 2015 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories.